US authorities were investigating on Monday night whether the New York bomb attacks were an Islamist terror plot as it emerged the alleged perpetrator had travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan several times and showed signs of having been radicalised.
Ahmad Rahami, 28, was captured on Monday in a gunfight with police in the city of Linden, New Jersey, after an intense manhunt.
Two officers were shot and wounded when they responded to a tip from the owner of a bar that a man resembling Rahami – whose photo was widely circulated on television news channels – was hiding in the doorway.
Rahami, whose nickname was "Mad" - an abbreviation of his first name - was carried by stretcher into an ambulance, taken conscious to hospital and was undergoing surgery last night having been shot in the leg and shoulder.
On Monday night he was charged with five counts of attempting to murder police officers during his dramatic arrest.
Rahami had travelled several times to both Afghanistan and Pakistan, people who knew him said on Monday night, and on his return appeared to have been radicalised.
Flee Jones, who grew up with Rahami, said that when he returned from one of the trips, he had a beard and wore traditional Muslim robes. He started praying regularly in the back of the family's chicken restaurant.
“It’s like he was a completely different person,” Mr Jones said. “He got serious and completely closed off.”
It was reported on Monday night that Rahami had married a woman in Pakistan and later applied for her to come to the US. Her current location was unknown.
In 2011 he spent time in Quetta, Pakistan, which is a stronghold of the Taliban. Between 2013 and 2014, he made another trip to Pakistan, staying there for 11 months, another official added.
Rahami is thought to be the sole attacker behind three attempted bombings on Saturday and Sunday.
One, in Manhattan, exploded and injured 29 people. An unexploded pressure-cooker bomb was found blocks away.
A handwritten note found with the unexploded bomb contained ramblings, including references to previous terrorists including the Boston bombers, an unnamed law enforcement official told CNN.
Earlier that day, a pipe bomb blew up in Seaside Park, New Jersey, before a charity race to benefit Marines. No one was injured.
Then on Sunday night, five explosive devices were discovered in a rubbish bin at an Elizabeth train station.
Preet Bharara, US attorney for the southern district of Manhattan, said there was “no indication that there’s a cell operating in the area or in the city.”
Rahami was born in Afghanistan and moved to the US with his family. His older brother Qasim is believed to have returned to Afghanistan after he was involved in a fight with police in New Jersey.
In 2011, Rahami and his father attempted to sue the city of Linden for discrimination after numerous court cases involving allegations of noise disturbance at the family takeaway.
They claimed they had been racially abused by local residents who told them: "Muslims don't belong here."
Three years later, he was arrested for unlawful possession of a weapon and domestic violence charges for allegedly attempting to stab his sister, but was not charged.
One of his sisters - it was unclear if it was the same one - reportedly said he was the “black sheep” of the family and did not get along with his father.
It was reported on Monday night that Rahami had a high school sweetheart in New Jersey, with whom he had a daughter.
A woman told Fox News they had been sweethearts at high school where he was the "class clown".
She said Rahami had failed to pay child support for the daughter they had together.
She said he would rail against American culture and homosexuality.
But the woman, who was identified only as Maria, said: "I never thought he would do something like this. I think he was brainwashed."
Donald Trump seized on the fact that the suspect was an Afghan immigrant to boost support for his controversial proposal to bar Muslims from entering the US. He insisted he had “predicted” the attacks and that the country, under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, had become “weak”.
Mrs Clinton, in turn, accused him of helping Isil recruiters with his rhetoric against Islam.
Suspicion remains that Rahami had outside assistance or training in order to assemble the eight bombs used in the attacks.
Despite the NYPD saying they were not actively looking for anyone else, some experts said the chance no-one else was involved was "infinitesimally small".
"Normally the way this works, you have a cell doing logistics, bomb-making and assembly, and an operational one," said Mike Rogers, former chairman of the House intelligence committee.
Bill Sweeney, an FBI special agent, said investigators were working on the suspect’s connections and movements. “I do not have information yet to show what the path of radicalisation was,” he said.
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York state, said that “information suggests it may be foreign-related, but we’ll see where it goes.”